human-first in innovation

human-first in innovation

Thinking

Aug 8, 2018

The meaningfulness of visualization

One ear in, out on the other: Why do our eyes sometimes understand more than our ears?

By

Stefanie Wibbeke

To break it
down, the cocaine and cannabis trade together made up as many sales in 2012 as
Apple did in the same year. Which is amazingly the same amount as prostitution
and Amazon earned together. How do I get there? Here
is the database, a wild compilation of data and links based on numbers in
newspaper articles from the mentioned period.
Is the conclusion obviously based on the numbers alone? Rather not. But David
McCandless turns data into images that allow contextual
relationships and comparisons that are not immediately apparent in the mere
study of numbers.

Source: informationisbeautiful.net

‍

Would my
above insight still have to be validated in order to draw illuminating insights
for the world economy? Of course, but as a first proof that the visualization
of abstract data leads to new insights, it’s sufficient. And if you are not
convinced, check out the following video:

The
pictorial representation thus helps us to recognize parallels and patterns, it relates
abstract information to each other and "flows into us differently"
than the spoken or read words.

That a picture
is worth a thousand words, proofs the project by Ann R. Rönnlund "Dollar-Street".
Here we look at life realities around the world, sorted according to the
disposable income. (Click here
for the Ted-Talk.) If you click through the different filters you will
see big differences, but also clear parallels. An exciting insight: Chickens do
not seem to benefit as much from the wealth of their owners as the kitchen facility
industry does.

Source: DollarStreet (both)

In addition
to Dollar Street, www.gapminder.org
also provides visual insights into issues such as the evolution of per capita
income worldwide or world population development. And while we are
on the topic of the world population, where do our donations actually go? With MyGoodness,
we can evaluate ourselves and our donation decisions.

Source: mygoodness.mit

‍

Similar works
a published article on autonomous
driving, which shows us what it means to endanger as few lives as
possible. Of course, many have already thought about it, we have read articles about,
heard lectures on it, but what this ultimately means, in the end, is more
tangible, thanks to this publication.

‍

Source: http://www.abc.net.au

Yes, even
uncomfortable topics can win with the help of an attractive presentation.
Everywhere are great digital examples that go far beyond an infographic. For instance
the page of Stephanie and Tony; as R2D3 they "illustrate" the
abstract topic of machine
learning. And provide another case of how complex content is presented
in a visual format aimed at the interested layman.

All
previous examples show that we can understand a great deal of numbers and
information in just minutes when they are visually appealing. Even relatively
"irrelevant" insights jostle us. In addition, we are more inclined to
deal with a topic if it is prepared attractively. We also often have this
experience in seminars or multi-day workshop sessions: when illustrators
accompany us, it is easier for the participants to recapitulate the content
based on an image in retrospect, rather than using their own transcripts. The
illustrations set a visual anchor, around which the details unfold and the
memory forms. Single pictures then tell a whole story - like here:

Source: BusinessIllustrator.com

And what do
we learn from all this? Maybe we take away ...

... that we
should spend the extra mile before a meeting for the visual preparation of the
contents (see also "How to avoid death By PowerPoint",
David JP Phillips).

... that misunderstandings
or a lack of understanding is because we just have not yet found the best
visual representation for it.

... that we
urgently need to work in more detail with Excel's charting features to help us
understand numbers better.

And maybe
we'll just catch up on visualizing our transcriptions by drawing sketch notes -
but more on that in the next blog post.

Stefanie Wibbeke

Head of Marketing

Stefanie is Head of Marketing at INDEED. She is responsible for spreading the word about us through digital and social marketing, partnerships, events, and more. As humanities scholar, she questions our work from a different angle and makes us explain projects with the human experience in mind. Residing in Hamburg by choice, she couldn’t live without her daily dose of crocheting.